So apparently Curiosity discovered something "for the history books" in a Martian soil sample. They're still analysing it further before they make any definite announcements, but this looks really interesting so far.

My BSc in Physics isn't enough to tell whether this is nonsense or not. My gut feeling is that it's not practical yet but could still be a possibility. I mean the guy behind this idea must have some sort of clue as to what he's doing... In any case, I'm all for looking further into this technology - any advances in space travel are a fantastic thing in my book.

My BSc in Physics isn't enough to tell whether this is nonsense or not. My gut feeling is that it's not practical yet but could still be a possibility. I mean the guy behind this idea must have some sort of clue as to what he's doing... In any case, I'm all for looking further into this technology - any advances in space travel are a fantastic thing in my book.

Wow, that sounds amazing. A bit hard to believe in fact, but I assume NASA doesn't give research funds to complete kooks... I can imagine there will be years or decades of work to put into it before it's actually practical, but hopefully they can find out for sure if it's feasible or not with current experiments.

D'oh! ...for want of a better phrase. Still, the misquoted quote was right in that it will be (is?) a historic mission - and there's still lots to do for Curiosity so there could well be something amazing on the horizon. Literally.

A proton, the particle you’ll find in the core of atoms, has an average lifetime of 100 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 years. Wait long enough, and it will suddenly vanish. Poof, gone. The same goes for light particles, the so-called ‘photons’. They’re expected to last a few zero’s longer, but in the end, they too will kick the bucket, one after the other. Isn’t that just bizarre? The light will go out, literally.

Doesn't that violate the laws of thermodynamics? What do they turn into?

That's incredibly misleading to just say that those things will just disappear. They'll turn into other things, which could randomly collide with other particles and create new particles if they have the momentum. (probably, don't quote me on that lol)Protons could decay into a neutral pion and a positron... there's probably a few other combinations of neutral and positive particles that would work. Photons (I'm guessing) could decay into W+ and W-. But I don't really know. Also, no-one has ever seen a proton or photon decay, they're just theories. Probably correct, but theories nevertheless.

I am so jealous of you right now. I always wanted one and I think my next purchase, after my modular synth is payed off (Bit off more than I could chew on that one ) is a quality telescope for sure. A quick trip out of the city and the sky is ripe for stargazing. Have fun.

I know nothing of astronomy and telescopes. Tell me, how clearly do you see the planets? When you say you saw Jupiter could you actually make out its topographical features or is it just a little shiny dot?

Oh, and keep an eye out for Planet X and let us know. Y'know, so I can know whether I should stop bothering with this essay.

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LegendMaker on pointless genre dissection wrote:

Will you in turn help me classify the shemale/ladyboy, tranny/ladyboy, ladyboy-shemale/tranny, and tranny-ladyboy/shemale sub-folders of my shemale/ladyboy/tranny collection?

I couldn't make out any of the features, but the telescope I've got isn't that great - I got it 2nd hand with very vague instructions and have only used it 3 or 4 times for not very long because it's too damn cold. I find it hard to keep it perfectly still and only move it slightly, but it goes up to 233.3x magnification which is good enough. I haven't really got used to it yet though and I think Jupiter was unusually bright last night, it was white rather than the orangey yellow I was expecting. Jupiter's diameter was about a third of the viewing area so I think I should have been able to see things fairly clearly. Maybe I need a polarising filter or something, I dunno. I could make out some moons fairly clearly as well (at least 4) but I couldn't keep the damn thing still enough. Gonna have to look into that... As I said I wanted to have a look at the Orion Nebula - if I can see that fairly clearly then I'm definitely gonna try and use it more often! Nebulas are so cool.

Hope that helped, but you do need some patience when it comes to astronomy I'm finding more and more. As for tonight, it's foggy. Damn you! *shakes fist at sky*

Wow, a third of the viewing area... I should find a friend with a telescope.And yeah, it was pretty damn foggy today in Reading.

I may have unintentionally misled you... I focused on Jupiter again last night and it was more like a tenth of the viewing area (which still isn't too bad!). I think the problem was I wasn't wearing my contacts and the best focus I could get on it was still crap. Or I should stop using the telescope while I'm inside, but it's so cold! I'm still convinced I need a polarising filter if I want to make out any details though.

It's the Geminids [seemingly coming from just above and to the left of Orion in the constellation of Gemini] meteor shower tonight by the way. Apparently it starts around 9pm for people around the GMT time zone, but the best viewing will be between midnight and 1 am.

My BSc in Physics isn't enough to tell whether this is nonsense or not. My gut feeling is that it's not practical yet but could still be a possibility. I mean the guy behind this idea must have some sort of clue as to what he's doing... In any case, I'm all for looking further into this technology - any advances in space travel are a fantastic thing in my book.

His description of how it alters space-time around the ship reminds me of the Planet Express in Futurama which moves space around it rather than moving itself. Really interesting theory nonetheless, I hope it gives way to some concrete results. Although I'm a little shocked that the energy required went from the mass of Jupiter all the way down to the Voyager in his calculations.

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AmishFury wrote:

I used to be a Black Metal musician like you, then I took a knife to the Euronymous

"Neutron stars are about 10 - 20 km in diameter (they cannot collapse further as this is the closest the neutrons can pack together) and have the mass of about 1.4 times that of our Sun (which is over 1 million km in diameter). This means that a neutron star is so dense that on Earth, one teaspoonful would weigh a billion tons"